Patrick Mendis says the transactional president is undermining US democratic ideals with his economic determinism, as seen in his closeness to the Saudi kingdom, which he previously condemned as a top funder of terrorism

In his highly choreographed first overseas trip, President Donald Trump appeared to have repeated president Richard Nixon’s trip to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East during the Watergate crisis some 33 years ago. Like Nixon, the returning chief American diplomat remains entangled in a major scandal – Trump’s involving Russia.

Unlike Nixon, however, Trump’s choice of the Saudi kingdom as his first stop not only undermined America’s democratic allies but also disregarded the founding Jeffersonian values of the republic. His selection seemed to compensate for his anti-Islam rhetoric and minimise his disastrous immigration policy of banning Muslims from countries other than Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, where the Trump family has business deals.

Saudi Arabia has for years been considered one of the worst human rights offenders. The disoriented White House has thus mistakenly transmitted the exact antithesis of American values on religious freedom, human rights, democracy and personal liberty that would emphasise the country’s moral vision and current standing in the world.

Trump, a former businessman, is a transactional leader as opposed to a transformational one. The Trump White House, with political operatives as his brain trust, is a hodgepodge of short-term tacticians, neither fully immersed in US history nor in international affairs. Their policies appear to be measured in pure financial terms.

The foundation of American primacy has, however, derived from the reflective actions of “transformational” leaders like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan.

The current White House and State Department, with Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson – ­another transactional businessman – are being questioned about their abilities to manage the complex ­organisations of the US government, where, as designed, there is “nobody in charge,” as the late US statesman Harlan Cleveland put it.

Given all this, why did the White House choose the absolute Saudi monarchy, whose strict sharia law – the ­Islamic religious law Trump has repeatedly denounced – is ­inimical to American values and traditions?

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the financier and promoter of Salafism, a Sunni movement that advocates the medieval traditions of the Prophet Mohammed. These forms of Wahhabism in the Muslim faith are also being exported through the madrassa school system – the fountainhead of Islamist terrorism around the globe. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers of the 9/11 attacks were Saudi citizens. The 9/11 Commission report found that al-Qaeda, which masterminded the attacks under Osama bin Laden, raised money from Saudi society. As a private citizen, Trump himself had called Saudi Arabia “the world’s biggest funder of terrorism”.

Tillerson acknowledged the Saudi human rights problem at a congressional hearing, followed by sending his “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices”, which documents human rights violations in the kingdom.

The Sunni kingdom neither tolerates religious worship by adherents of other faiths nor allows women to drive. Homosexuality is punishable by stoning to death. These sharia laws are hostile to the most conservative views of Trump’s electoral base of the Christian right.

In his recent speech at the State Department, Tillerson argued that American values must take a back seat while national security and commercial interests drive President Trump’s “America First” strategy. He maintains a US “foreign policy projected with a strong ability to enforce the protection of our freedoms with a strong military.” For him, “we can only do that with economic prosperity” as the Saudis, Russian and Chinese do.

Such economic determinism with assorted other elements of the “America First” plan – like banning or deporting immigrants – is a dramatic departure from America’s ­Jeffersonian foreign policy tradition of championing its founding values and protecting human rights.

Trump is driven by money and motivated by instant self-indulgence. When he first met President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Florida, the North Korean nuclear issue and ­bilateral trade concessions were purposefully linked for a possible deal. As the Trump family has commercial interests in China, a transactional business relationship seems to work well with Xi’s “China First” strategy and the “America First” plan. When it comes to Saudi Arabia, Trump has also changed his rhetoric as he did with China.

Trump said, “Saudi Arabia – and I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend US$40 million, US$50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.” His commercial interactions with the Saudi royal family go back to the 1990s, when Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Alsaud had helped “bail” him out after his Plaza Hotel in New York and his Atlantic City casinos were struggling.

Unlike the civilisational societies of Saudi Arabia, Iran and even China, the United States was created by an enlightened band of founding fathers with a global vision for the new republic.

Welcoming immigrants from all corners of the globe, America has become the world and the world is America. The Jeffersonian ideals embedded in the Statue of Liberty – a gift from the French – and Ellis Island in New York must be the bedrock of American foreign policy.

The Jeffersonian inspiration is the “invisible attraction” that makes America stronger and more prosperous, not “a strong military” as Tillerson has argued. The most logical rationale came from Trump’s defence secretary, James Mattis, who wisely remarked: “If you don’t fully fund the State Department, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.”

The deal-making, transactional president must not forget founding father and presidential forebear Thomas Jefferson, whose iconic memorial to the south of the White House keeps a watchful eye on the chief diplomat in the Oval Office.

Indifference to Jeffersonian values and American foreign policy tradition, which made America a great democratic nation, will have associated consequences for the troubled presidency.

Professor Patrick Mendis, a naturalised US citizen and a former State Department official and military professor during the Clinton and Bush administrations, is an associate-in-research at the Fairbank Centre for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. The views expressed are his own and do not represent the views of the Harvard University or the US government

不投票論者認為：lesser evil始終是evil。兩惡取其小，依然是作了惡。為存清白，應該不投票或投白票。反對不投票論則認為，不投票給「較小之惡」等於幫助「較大之惡」取勝。對惡袖手旁觀，表面上沒有作惡，實則是被動的（Passively）作了惡。正所謂「我不殺伯仁，伯仁為我而死」。漢娜鄂蘭（Hannah Arendt）在《平庸之為惡》（The Banality of Evil）中指：「選擇『較小之惡』的人，太輕率地忘記了：他選擇了惡。（He who chooses for the lesser evil all too readily forgets having chosen evil.）」正是這個意思。

「兩惡取其輕」的問題很早就困擾天主教的神學家。公元四世紀，聖奧古斯丁（St. Augustine）便提出「惡非實體論」：上帝創造萬物，如果惡是實體存在之物，那誰來創造惡呢？不就是上帝嗎？可是，上帝是至善的，本身不可能有丁點兒的惡，也就不可能創造惡（上帝也不是無所不能的呀！）。惡不是實體，那惡是什麼？聖奧古斯丁的答案是：惡只是善的失去（Loss of good）或善的否定（Negation of good）。

Jean-Pierre Lehmann says the prime minister’s cosying up to the US is consistent with the ideological arc of modern Japan, which more than a century ago decided to cast its lot with the West, turning its back on Asia

“Datsu-A, Nyu-O” was the title of a Japanese publication that first appeared in 1885, 17 years after the start of the so-called Meiji Restoration (1868), a period marking Japan’s amazing drive to modernisation. Not until perhaps the reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in China, in 1979, had the world seen anything comparable. From backward feudal isolation, in the space of a few short decades, Japan emerged as a modern, industrialised, imperialist world power. It was the only non-Western nation that succeeded in meeting the West on Western terms.

The document that set out the vision of this new Japan was titled “The Charter Oath of Five Articles”, the fourth and fifth of which read: “Evil customs of the past shall be discontinued, and new customs shall be based on the just laws of nature”; “Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world in order to promote the welfare of the empire.” The knowledge being sought was in fact from the West. The Datsu-A, Nyu-O publication – which literally means, “Exit Asia, Enter the West” – confirmed that promoting the welfare of the empire required “de-Asianisation” and “Westernisation”.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Japan learned and assimilated a lot from the West, primarily Britain, Germany, France and the US: constitutional law, jurisprudence, banking and finance, education, capitalism, modern military and naval strategy, railway building, industry, music, painting, sports (baseball from the US in 1873), lighthouses, textile manufacturing, watch making … the list runs on. Until the undertaking of these reforms, ever since the fifth century, Japan had been a student of China and, to a lesser extent, Korea. Thus, “evil customs of the past” referred to Chinese learning.

Reflecting this vision and trend, in the course of modern history, Japan has formed three major alliances with Western powers: Britain, from 1902 to 1922; Nazi Germany, from 1938 to 1945; and the US since 1953. While Japan had a number of Asian colonies (Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria) and invaded most countries in East Asia, it has never had, does not have, and, based on the current schmoozing between Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe, is unlikely to have any Asian allies. While playing golf with Trump in Florida, Abe pointed out that his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960, was the last Japanese prime minister to have played golf with an American president (Dwight Eisenhower).

In this June 1957 photo, then Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi shakes hands with then senator Prescott S. Bush, watched by then US president Dwight Eisenhower. Photo: AP

Kishi in many ways embodied the Datsu-A, Nyu-O syndrome. During the war as the senior official in charge of the industrial policy of Manchukuo, he was responsible for the abduction of hundreds of thousands of Chinese slave labour, for which he earned the sobriquet Showa no yokai – “Showa-era monster”. For his war crimes, Kishi spent three years in Sugamo prison, but was released by the US as the Chinese liberation, the Korean war and the cold war changed the picture of the Asia-Pacific theatre. He was judged a good candidate to help lead Japan in a pro-US direction.

While sucking up to its American ally, Tokyo insults its former Asian colonies and enemies

Washington was not to be disappointed. In 1960, in spite of massive demonstrations by Japanese pacifists, Kishi, then prime minister, managed to ram through the Diet (Japan’s parliament) the ratification of the US-Japan security treaty that had been signed at the end of the US’ military occupation of Japan and that has served Japan so overwhelmingly well for the ensuing decades. Japan was transformed from America’s hated enemy to its pampered protégé, a status for which Kishi, who was dubbed “America’s Favourite War Criminal”, was an important architect.

Abe’s main obsession in kowtowing so obsequiously to Washington was to preserve the treaty and the alliance with the US. As far as one can judge from the fraternising last weekend, it would seem to be “mission successful”, though with Trump’s renowned volatility on the Japanese front, cautious optimism would be more in order than euphoria. Since the news of Trump’s election in November created a degree of panic in Tokyo, Abe has sought many means to brown-nose America. In December, he paid a “historic” visit to Pearl Harbour.

The Datsu-A, Nyu-O syndrome continues to be flagrantly illustrated, for example, from the fact that just a day after Abe’s trip to Pearl Harbour, his defence minister, Tomomi Inada, made an official pilgrimage to the Yasukuni Shrine, where, inter alia, “repose” the spirits of a number of Japanese class-A war criminals, which is no doubt where Kishi’s spirit would also be had he been executed rather than liberated by the Americans. While sucking up to its American ally, Tokyo insults its former Asian colonies and enemies.

Whether the consolidation of the US-Japan security treaty (if indeed this is to happen) will strengthen peace in the Asia-Pacific remains to be seen. We live in very dangerous times: Asia generally, northeast Asia in particular, is a geopolitical cauldron. As Deng Yuwen wrote in the Post recently, “in the Trump era, we can’t rule out war between China and the US”.

Were Japan to re-enter Asia, contritely for the crimes committed in the past and constructively to bring about greater peace and prosperity in the turbulent continent, the world would be on a positive-sum game trajectory and the impact on Asia would be tremendous. As it is, by persisting in the Datsu-A, Nyu-O syndrome, tensions are exacerbated and the risks of war enhanced.

China was the US’ ally against Japan (and Nazi Germany) in the second world war, it would be a terribly tragic paradox if Japan and the US were to ally against China in a third world war.

Jean-Pierre Lehmann is emeritus professor at IMD, founder of The Evian Group, and visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong

Gerard A. Postiglione says Trump’s policies are already causing disruptions on campuses in the US, an opportunity competing Chinese universities could seize to get ahead. Overall, however, a deteriorating bilateral relationship will bring more harm than good

Like never before, universities have become instruments of competition between nations. Diplomatic relations can have major repercussions. When the US and China were on the verge of normalising relations in the 1970s, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping ( 鄧小平 ) became adamant that China should have a thousand talented scientists who would be recognised around the world. Ezra Vogel recounts the story of a 1978 phone call to president Jimmy Carter at 3am, Washington time, by his science adviser, who was visiting China at the time, because Deng wanted quick approval to send several hundred Chinese to study at American universities.

Since then, diplomatic relations between the US and China have steadily improved, through not without regular periodic strains over economic, political and military issues. Nevertheless, economic interdependence and finely tuned statecraft ensured that cool heads prevailed in times of stress, and economic progress for both countries continued for several decades.

Today, there are signs that US-China relations are in for a jolt. Newly installed US President Donald Trump has threatened to undo 40 years of US-China diplomacy and ignite a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. The leaders of both countries have a similar goal. For Trump, it is to “make America great again”. For President Xi Jinping (習近平), it is to rejuvenate China and restore it to its place when it led the world. While China has declared its support for deepening economic globalisation, the new US administration has turned inward to save jobs for workers who fell victim to what journalist Thomas Friedman calls the “flattening world”.

Trump’s vitriol was initially met with anger from Beijing. That soon turned to laughter at what the Chinese press perceived as amateur statesmanship. However, the possibility of new tariffs to block access to the US market is now being met by plans for a Chinese economic pivot. If tensions continue, there could be several potential consequences for universities.

First, while US universities are now scrambling to become sanctuaries for immigrant students and safe havens for scholars needing rescue from visa-banned countries, American universities and programmes in China may also feel pressure from a Trump administration. The political atmosphere at Chinese universities has tightened, but American campuses and programmes in China continue to find ways to get round internet restrictions and operate with little interference. Nevertheless, Republicans in Congress are already harassing American campuses in China and we can expect more of the same from Trump Republicans.

Second, Trump’s contention that China is stealing American jobs, even though the decision to transfer jobs was made by US corporations, may come to affect universities. Chinese scientists who graduate from US universities and join the American workforce may face a backlash, or even tougher visa restrictions, if they are perceived as taking jobs from American graduates. Trump stokes suspicion about the Chinese as hackers, which may create an even more toxic atmosphere for Chinese scholars studying and visiting US universities, especially in fields such as computer science, a field that China sees as being essential to its own economic restructuring.

Third, former president Barack Obama’s initiative to send thousands of US students to China for language study will become less popular in an environment of China-bashing under Trump. The aim of the Obama initiative – to build trust and understanding – could be severely compromised.

Fourth, the illiberal turn of Trump’s policies, including the higher entry barriers for scholars from majority-Muslim countries, may make young scholars and scientists from some countries give more serious consideration to the long-term advantages of studying at a Chinese university.

Fifth, while Trump has weakened the resonance of liberalism and globalisation in American universities, China stands to gain as it takes a lead in economic globalisation with its “One Belt, One Road” initiative and funding mechanisms such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Furthermore, the elimination of Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) proposal has opened up a leadership void.

With as many college-educated citizens as the US by 2020, several globally competitive universities, and generous funding for attracting notable scientists for visits, China stands to gain. Much energy at American universities will be focused on fending off Trumpism, amid an international atmosphere made unsteady by possible changes in US policy in Europe and Asia. China’s top-tier universities may advance in global visibility. China is already the third most popular destination for international students.

Sixth, the wild card is tension in the South China Sea. For China, the Taiwan issue is non-negotiable and territorial claims are a matter for countries that have claims. Should this situation intensify, educational and academic exchanges would surely fall victim to any conflict. For example, China may restrict the Fulbright programme, as it has done in the past. Such a move could lead to a tit-for-tat tussle with the Confucian Institutes in the US.

Moreover, Trump’s reversal of the TTP has weakened Southeast Asian nations’ balancing act between China and the US. The pattern of overseas study of Southeast Asian students would shift even more to China.

There will be no winners in a changing relationship between the US and China; universities in both countries could suffer. Nevertheless, the advantage could go to China if it continues to invest heavily in teaching and research, and further its internationalisation. With increased autonomy, China’s research universities will not only help to restructure the economy by injecting more innovation into the mix, but also extend its influence on international higher education.

The US-China relationship under the Trump administration will surely test the autonomy of universities in both countries, and the potential of the academic community to be a force for rational discussion. This is an opportunity for universities to distinguish themselves not only as instruments of national competition but also as institutions for international peace. Universities in both countries may not be able to eliminate the confrontations that may be in store under a Trump administration, but there is much they can do to keep US-China relations on an even keel until 2020.

Gerard A. Postiglione is professor and chair of higher education at the University of Hong Kong

Kevin Rafferty says the US president’s apocalyptic policies pose a grave risk, not only for the future of America as a nation, but the fragile planet itself

Commentators and pundits, American and foreign, have sadly misunderstood US President Donald Trump. They expected him to calm down and become presidential, at least when he became the unlikely ­Republican candidate, or when he beat Hillary Clinton – or, at the very least, when he went through the solemn pomp and panoply of the inauguration and he took possession of the Oval Office.

It is now clear that Trump must be taken both literally and seriously, however outrageous his demands, however personal, dark and unrealistic his world view. He will not let it stand in his way that he was the choice of only 27 per cent of eligible voters or that he lost to Clinton by 2.8 popular million votes.

He believes that if he promised or threatened it on the campaign trail, victory gives him the mandate to do it. And he has set to work like a Force 13 hurricane, caring little about anyone standing in his way.

For America itself, there will be a price to pay as Trump’s hyperactivity in producing executive orders, firing people and hectoring bosses to bring factories back raises heavy protectionist costs. But the rest of the world has greater reason to beware. Being “Trumpled”, that is, trampled by Trump, is a real danger not only for other countries but for the fragile planet itself.

In his inaugural address, Trump thumped out his determination to “Make America Great Again”. With little grace or eloquence, he let out an angry patriotic roar vowing to recreate brilliant shining America, improve education, bring back industry, create jobs, get rid of crime and restore power to the people, not the corrupt elite of Washington.

He went to work immediately. His now notorious refugee and immigration ban even on people vetted and given visas was only the culmination of the first week of his hurricane. Trump claimed that all he wanted to do was keep the US safe from the “bad dudes” out there. But terrorists from the countries banned were responsible for zero American deaths between 1975 and 2015, whereas terrorists from Saudi Arabia killed 2,369 Americans, and those from the United Arab Emirates killed 314. Both these countries were missing from Trump’s list.

For a sense of perspective, jihadists have killed 94 people in the US since 9/11, but 301,797 Americans have been shot dead by other Americans in the past decade, 21 of them by toddlers. Between 2005 and 2014, nine Americans were killed by Islamic jihadists – who in most cases were US citizens, not immigrants.

Trump started with an order to undermine Obamacare; he went on to authorise building the infamous wall with Mexico, and perhaps impose duties of 20 per cent on Mexican goods to pay for it; to remove roadblocks from the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines; to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and promise to renegotiate the North America Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico; he expressed his personal support for torture to extract information; he promised new trade deals and pressured US firms to bring jobs back; he pledged a stronger military to crush America’s enemies; and sacked four key state department management officials with 150 years of combined experience in “house cleaning”. Dissenting bureaucrats were told to obey or quit.

In between, he attacked the media for not seeing the hundreds of thousands of invisible people really occupying the empty spaces on the National Mall at his inauguration, and for not counting up to five million fraudulent voters who had denied him victory in the popular vote.

Americans have only themselves to blame: they voted Trump into power. Foreigners are not so lucky: they clearly get no say in Trump’s world.

If Trump carries out the foreign policies he promised, the already fragile global geopolitical, economic, trade and environment system will be devastated. Economic progress made by many developing nations will be threatened as America turns inwards and protectionist.

There are bigger dangers to the Earth itself. Trump’s professed policies risk subjecting the world to a slow suffocating death as he disregards international climate change treaties [10] and encourages a new carbon economy. Or it could suffer a fiery death in war as Trump destroys old alliances and picks fights that could escalate dangerously. This, of course, is all too apocalyptic. But Trump’s policies are apocalyptic.

That’s why editors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the “Doomsday Clock” 30 seconds closer to midnight, now just 2½ minutes away.

Trump’s way of changing the world is equally dangerous. He continues to behave like a real estate mogul, cajoling, hectoring, bullying and shaming rivals or clients to grovel to get his way.

Sadly, it is hard to see any world leader with the stature and courage to challenge Trump in the name of the fragile Earth. World Bank and International Monetary Fund leaders, quick to give their opinions on Brexit, threats from disease and other crises, have been silent, perhaps for fear of upsetting their largest shareholder, the US.

There is talk of Trump getting together with his best buddy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, to carve up the 21st-century world as Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill divided the post-second-world-war world at Yalta.

Who gets to control Europe, China, Japan and the rest of Asia, Africa and Oceania may be up for grabs, unless China is brought into a triumvirate to control the world.

This would require an unlikely deal by the dealmaker, not least because of his strident claims that China stole US jobs and sapped the strength of its industry, and his condemnation of Beijing’s island building in the South China Sea.

Both President Xi Jinping ( 習近平 ) and Premier Li Keqiang ( 李克強) have spoken up for the global commons but, to be a true world leader, Beijing would have to throw off centuries of history of the Middle Kingdom used to seeing neighbours as vassal states paying tribute. It would require China to join forces with other leaders in Asia and Europe in asserting the overriding needs of the Earth.

German chancellor Angela Merkel understands the need for global wisdom, but she and other European leaders are threatened by populist parties, encouraged by Trump and sometimes by Putin, who would happily break up the European Union.

Japan has been a great beneficiary of the peace and economic progress since the second world war. But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s sights are set on a deal with Trump and rewriting history, rather than seeking allies who could make common cause in keeping the world – including the US itself, which would suffer from protectionism – open and safe against Trump’s threats. Abe and UK Prime Minister Theresa May should understand that being America’s mistress can only end in disaster when Trump makes the rules.

The important point is that Trump is wrong: the fragile Earth of the 21st century needs leaders with global, not greedy nationalistic, solutions for our common problems.

Kevin Rafferty worked for the World Bank and reported from Washington DC under six US presidents